The Microsoft Religion
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The real issue here is expectation.
Nobody is excited about the alternator in their honda civic. Unless it fails, at which point you get really excited (in a bad way). You just expect it to work.
But if you buy a flashy, red "High Voltage" alternator that promises to give you extra horsepower (which is a lie, by the way) you will be much more satisified, happy and passionate about your alternator, especially if you install it yourself. And if it breaks, GREAT, you get to buy an ever bigger, flashier one.
For the hard core computer enthusiast, the DIY spirit frequently is what drives them. The fact that MS products work "out of the box" is actually a negative (from the standpoint of generating passion) though we seldom realize it. For a Linux op system, there is little expectation that it will "just work". People expect to have to fidget with it. And that is part of the appeal. It's "more powerful" and "better."
I am reminded of my first comp sci class where there was a student who was really angry that we weren't going to program in a language that allowed him to set memory addresses directly.
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My biggest problem with MS is that each new product version adds and alters features that are incompatible in such a way that you have to re-learn the old features. Case in point - Windows Explorer in Vista no longer has an up-arrow button to move up one folder - now you have to press Alt-up-arrow on the keyboard. Is that progress? And if you've installed Office 2007 Enterprise which includes Groove, you can't just hit Alt-F, enter, enter to create a new folder - that key sequence will take to the somewhere in Grooveland.
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"The entry makes a good point that Microsoft isn't really be evangelized. "
Maybe it has to do with their spell checker?
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Happy Birthday Kendall!!!
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Here's an excerpt from Steve's article, "The Differences Between Sql Server 2000 and 2005", published today:
"If the [Microsoft] plan is to release a new version [of SQL Server] every 2-3 years, you'll need to upgrade at least every 5-6 years to maintain support options."
Of course, having to continually upgrade primarily to maintain support options works out great for Microsoft, but is expensive for those of us who invested significant amounts of time and money into learning and optimizing a particular version for our needs. Maybe it's just me, but it feels as though we're being gouged, and this feeling makes it difficult develop loyalty to a company that isn't loyal to their own products and customers.
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Just thinking about what is on this box. There are Word Excel, IE, SQL Server 2005, VB6, Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite, Visio, SourceSafe, MS Access, and other MS Stuff. I have a number of non-Microsoft products but for the most part this is MS Machine running on an MS OS. And you know what, it all works.
Am I a zealot? No, I use what works and allows me to produce an acceptable result that can be repeated. I think it is the movie The Rookie where Denis Quade stops late one night and test his pitching speed against one of the police speed monitors. In the background the song that plays is "Stuff That Works" Good song that just says there is stuff that I use, and it works, it is there when I need it and it is stuff I depend on. I am not a zealot, but I use the stuff that works.
Kendall, may you have the best birthday ever.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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Agreed. It was a no-brainer to switch to SQL2K from 6.5.
Apart from the fact that our department mandates that we use supported software on hardware under warranty, I could not recommend upgrading to SQL2K5.
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Well, for those of you who do claim to be members of The One True [Software] Religion, the High Priests of Redmond are always looking for a few good men and women. Despite all the perks and prestige, I personally have found it to be very difficult to recruit talented SQL Server consultants in the Houston area (or any other), with either the traditional relational skill set or who can spell the abbreviation for business intelligence.
I don't know why, but there are talented folks that I talk to frequently who have no interest in working here.I loved Microsoft products before I came here. I loved Linux and FLOSS stuff, too -- they just never made me dollar one as developer, a dba or otherwise. Microsoft software always delivered the goods... and now I've been abducted. I love working for Bill. It's something that I just never imagined would happen, even at the pinnacle of my dotcom ego. [One of these days I'll recover from the disappointment of the bust.
] It's a great company made up of great people. I'm managed to resist the gravitational pull of the mothership so far... but after spending the last five weeks (with gorgeous weather!) in Redmond, I might have to take the northwest plunge and leave Tejas after all. Maybe we should start rehab for those of us still in the cult?"Hi, my name is Dave."
"Hi, Dave."
"I work for Microsoft and I love it here. I think you will, too..."
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I was called by a Microsoft recruiter wanting to talk to me about a position they had available. “We can talk, as long as the position doesn’t have ‘evangelist’ anywhere in the title”, I nearly said – turns out that it was for an ‘Architect Evangelist’ position – bummer.
I think the religion discussion when it comes to Microsoft is moot – it is simply not cool to be vocal and enthusiastic about Microsoft. There are a lot of developers, architects, administrators and others who really believe that MS tools are the best thing to deliver their solutions, but they keep quiet about it.
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Happy 6th Birthday Kendall !!!
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My take is that all of the companies the BLOG sites as having a cult following are in actually in diffrent stages of the Product Life Cycle Management see the link below for details
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle#The_stages
I guess I'm looking at this from a programmers point of view and not a users.
Basically my point is how excited can you get about refactoring the same copy command for the nth time?
The Pioneers of all software projects are brash, arrogant, and genius people. They and a small team of say maybe 2-5 developers create something from scratch with long hours and a ton of passion (see the book microserfs for examples). This creates I think the fire storm and cult following the article was referring to.
Now Fast forward 10 years and that same software is now augmented by teams of 300-1000 developers that really have no idea of how there little piece they create fits into the framework of the program and have little interaction with the other developers spread across the planet.
Take those two things togther the same old idea and large group implentation and tell me where that gets you? Bored & chasing a pay check
As a side note I was once a v-dash (temp) for microsoft and refused to re-up after my 6th month contract was over. I was happy to visit the land of oz and sit in the red room for 2 weeks before I got an office that I had to share with 3 others. Ahh that brings back memories. c Ya.
Happy Bday Kendall
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Microsoft is Cool hey I am Asp.net MVP
Happy Birthday Kendall !
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Oops, I forgot to wish Kendall a happy birthday. Sorry, Kendall! Merry birthday, kiddo!!
As a random aside, we're even letting Aggies in @ Microsoft now. Heh. Aegis Wing sounds like a dream project that I would've loved to have had as an intern...
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"Nobody else has tackled getting their OS to work on 98%+ of the PC hardware in the world".
I always thought that 98% of the PC hardware was designed to work with Windows
. Though, in reality, this is probably more software-orientated than hardware. Just look at how many minimum specs are "DirectX n compatible", or some-such requirement.Not that this is MS-only; there's been OpenGL, Soundblaster and a whole load more.
The only major complaint I have about MS is their astronomical prices, and what you get for your money compared to other commercial companies, (i.e. even excluding open-source etc.).
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I do think Microsoft has done a great job and I think their pricing is actually fairly low. Doesn't seem that way for a monopoly in places, but I remember when you might want to buy Solaris, or OS/2, or Ami Pro, or Wordperfect. Microsoft underpriced them everytime and that might be as critical to the growth of the PC industry as anything.
The great job doesn't necessarily create excitement anymore, though. It's just "expected" now, not really exciting.
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